This is a journal of my vegetable gardens. Skippy was my first dog and he thought the garden was his, even though I did all the work. But Skippy always stood by me and was a great friend. Now Suzie and Charley follow in his footsteps and garden with me. We're located near Boston (USDA zone 6A). I have a community plot, a backyard vegetable garden, fruit trees and berry bushes, chickens and bees. I use sustainable organic methods and do my best to grow all of my family's vegetables myself.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

harvests

I'm keeping track of my harvests this year by taking a photo of each. Here are harvests from the past few days. Much too much lettuce right now, but better too much than too little. I hope it holds up. Lots of radish - all different shapes. The carrot thinnings are really tasty.

My squash rotted at the bud end. Too much water or no pollination? I don't know which. But I'm worried that I haven't seen many bees this year. Definitely no honeybees. Where are the bees?Daucus carota

13 Comments:

Your photos are so beautiful! I'm sad about the bees myself. I am actually going to try and keep a hive when I am able to make the initial investment. Supposedly it's a good way to help bee population. It seems hard to me but folks swear by it.

Wow, your harvest looks alot like our dinner we had tonight. I picked a huge mess of english peas and steamed them, tey were so delicious. We also had a green salad with forellenschuss lettuce, avocado and onions. And I made a pickled radish salad with sweetened rice wine vinegar and fresh dill. We had some leftover grilled salmon and NZ sauvignon Blanc out on the deck, don't you love summer?

I just read a lengthy news article about honey bee colonies stating that they are being infested with mites. They are in turn weakening there immune system causing them to dieing off as well as destroying there reproductive cycle.

And I believe that the mites in the honey bee population were introduced by man. Something about trying to control the African bees IE killer bees in the west? Not sure if that is true but it wouldn't surprise me to see man screw up something again. Nice harvest!

I have been watching the numbers go down every year for the past 3 years. I remember the first year I took photos for this blog, there were lots of bees, honeybees and others, in my side yard. This year I have only seen bumblebees so far.

I'm on my way over to the community garden now and its a good project to walk around and see if there are any bees there.

I've seen a total of one honey bee this year, which is very sad. I've seen other bees, little wild bees and bumble bees. Usually my raspberries are swarmed with honey bees, not this year. I've had to resort to hand pollinating my squash just to make sure it sets. I've yet to see one bee of any kind in my blossoms.

I have been asking the same question! Here in Southern Maryland, I have not seen a single honey bee this year and I have been looking! The past couple of wee`ks, I've been harvesting tons of lavender and I have only seen bumble bees and wild bees on the flowers. This is the first time that I haven't seen honey bees. :( I am getting worried.

Last year (here in Newton) we had a lot of honey bees that seemed to love the white clover in our not-so-perfect lawn. This year, not ONE so far! Did you see the story about the bees that escaped from moving hives on the north shore last week? Maybe they'll work their way down here!

I read about the bee problem (also called bee blight) 3 years ago, when for several days we had an incredible swarm in the ivy on several of our pine trees. It was a sight to see. I had been looking online for further information, and found that many beekeepers will happily come and vacuum up your "problem"... I realized I was probably lucky to have them. They did clear away on their own.

Ever since, I have taken time to be happy about seeing honeybees when I see them. I've seen a few this year but will go down right now and take a look.

The potential bee disaster is referenced, btw, in the summer movie the Happening. The opening quote says something like "after the extinction of the honey bee, mankind will survive no longer than 4 years" and attributes the quote to Albert Einstein. I was happy to find out that Albert Einstein never said such a thing, but it's said that the events depicted in the Happening movie as affecting humans are inspired by what scientists see going on with the bees.

just checked my garden plots. I seem to have a good population of some very tiny bees, about the size of a .5 karat diamond. They look like they are wagging their tails up and down when they land. They are no fat, sweet County Fair honeybees, but they are clearly pollinating. At this time they are pollinating all the flowers on my bolting lettuce ... I am in northeast MA